Play Your Own Game

I was perusing my usual haunts this afternoon, and came across some helpful advice. Mike Cernovich explains for us:

You’re not going to out Trump Trump. Trump gets the alpha male pass for vulgar jokes and other crude comments. It’s a law of nature. Just as handsome older women like Megyn Kelly get unearned news anchor spots and are perceived as more intelligent than they are (halo effect), Trump gets to say things other people can’t say.

Marco is soft. If he wants to beat Trump, he has to show how he’s different but better. By making jokes about Trump’s hands, Rubio made a direct comparison between himself and Trump. Rubio lost a lot of supporters, which I could predicted.

(I’m not going to tell you how Rubio could force Trump to play his game. Rubio has spent $100 million on consultants and ads. He can write me a check for that information.)

Why do you think Trump won’t debate policy with Cruz? Trump would lose that debate because it would create a direct comparison between Cruz and Trump. Playing another man’s game is suicide.

But that’s not who I am. Just as Mike is a cheerful brawler who gets in people’s faces, I am an arrogant, solitary creature of the night who silently broods about things and makes plans while other people are sleeping.

Imagine Vox, one of the most hated men on the Internet, trying to be a nice, normal guy. Just the image is worth a laugh.

Self help advice is notoriously unreliable, mostly because people are notoriously unreliable. The fact of the matter is, most people wouldn’t be the lead star in a movie about their own lives. They do what is expected of them, they virtue signal when told to. They say what they are supposed to say. They act like they are supposed to act. They are like NPCs in an RPG game. And so they lose.

And they do all of this in spite of this narcissistic “everybody just be yourself” crap spewed by the toxic media. It’s all you, it’s your world, you take it all. Being yourself, in a modern context, means being just like every other slob to crawl on this miserable ball of dirt. Few people take the advice. And many who think they do are really using it as an excuse to buy expensive crap to impress someone else.

But, like many pithy quotes tossed around the Internet like hot potatoes, there is a kernel of truth under it all.

I have tried to be a polite paragon of proper society, and it has never worked. It goes against the grain. I try to be conscientious and consistent, I try to have attention to detail in the things I despise, or don’t care to do. But, again, I fall flat on my face every time.

That is because, like my friend Francis at Liberty’s Torch, I am something of a curmudgeonly sort. I enjoy being contrary for the sake of being contrary, at times, and I muse to no end about things most people wouldn’t waste a second thought on. I am not a nice man, and nobody would mistake me for being polite, though I can do the job if I absolutely must. I am cynical in the extreme, and not very optimistic about anything that relates to people. My sense of humor borders on the dark, disgusting, and blatantly offensive. As I’ve grown older, I’ve become a miser with my money, and horde it like some kind of Scrooge.

This is a life most people would regard as outright misery. Indeed, some of my better friends occasionally ask me why I’m so depressed or miserable. Except that I’m not. I am quite happy in my curmudgeonly ways. I enjoy being the Devil’s Advocate. Poking people is fun, and I am good at it. These topics that bore most people enthrall me. They can have their College Football. I will take Byzantine History.

I even enjoy being a pessimist.

I’ve never been happier than I am these days, and I know my writings are at their most effective when I am ranting in borderline incoherent fashion, loaded with righteous fury.

There’s a reason I call myself Dystopic, after all.

The point I’m trying to make here, is that like Mike Cernovich tells us, it is best to play your own game, whatever that is. When I try to be polite, thoughtful about another man’s feelings, and politically inoffensive, I fail so badly it’s positively hilarious to watch. It’s like a train wreck in slow motion. I remember a conversation stopping because I wanted to say “fuck” but there was a child present. I stood there dumbfounded thinking on how I was going to replace my expletive before the child graciously supplied “fuck?” Fuck, indeed. It’s one of my nastier habits, and I know some of my readers find it puzzling that I am as vulgar as I am. But there it is.

You have your own niche, folks. You can win in that niche. Trump is an asshole. Rubio was a robot. Cruz is… well, whatever the hell he is. Play your own game and be happy. Play another man’s game, and you will lose and be miserable.